The Sun and the Daily Mail are Britain’s two best selling newspapers. Is it any wonder then that the Mail has again publically referred to Ed Miliband as Red Ed while the Sun has recently delighted in publishing a front page picture of Sally Bercow the Speaker’s wife looking tearful and deeply distressed while detailing her marital problems with her husband. As I’ve already said in earlier Posts the Red Ed characterization of Ed Miliband by the Daily Mail is so very typical of a newspaper once a keen supporter of Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930’s and typical because it mimics the tactics of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief in associating Jews with communism. If you recall it was part of the Mail’s recent attack on Ed’s father Ralph as an ungrateful refugee Jewish immigrant, smearing Ed, then leader of the Labour Party, in the process. The Red Ed smear as I previously pointed out is at best ludicrous because Miliband himself is about as much of a communist or socialist as bumbling Boris Johnson. For this visceral right wing rag however he’s Red because he wanted to drastically curtail exploitative employment practices such as Zero Hours contracts, substantially increase the Minimum Wage for lowest paid workers and put a freeze on rampant energy price increases. And for these fundamentally decent and caring proposals he was labeled as Red.
Well doesn’t it just typify such places as Essex and Kent, roost of the lower middle class and home from home of Sun and Daily Mail readers. A place where the Red Ed smear is liked and understood for what it actually is! The Sun’s bringing the Bercow family problems to public scrutiny and ridicule is something else. This is a private matter and while the lady herself has been foolishly outspoken in the past, lacked moderation and behaved unwisely in an unbecoming exhibitionist manner, it was bad taste of the newspaper to highlight her troubles. On the other hand was she so stunningly naïve in failing to recognize that the British news media is in main a filth exchange conduit between its owners and the general public. Sally Bercow should have kept her marital disenchantment to herself and been sufficiently strong to keep her to herself and not hand it to people who make money out of the anguish of others.
KEEPING AN EYE ON THE BBC!
One of David Cameron’s first acts as Prime Minister of the new Tory
Government was to appoint John Whittingdale as his new Culture Secretary, a man
with very little love if any for the BBC! Well Rupert Murdoch, whose media
empire helped the Conservative Party’s election campaign, has long wanted to
put the main rival to Sky Television in harm’s way and Cameron’s recent
appointment may be his best chance. His way saying thanks to a friend! This
main media outlet of the British Establishment with its well known hostility
towards Israel and palpable Islamic fundamentalist friendly sentiment has long
been well past its sell by date for neutral unbiased reporting, news coverage
and honest neutrality of its panel based shows where it has often been accused
of fixing the audience. In recent years such attitudes and conduct
have caused serious public disquiet.
Whittingdale’s appointment has therefore been seen by the press as a
potential threat to BBC finances, particularly its lawful ability to demand a
license fee from television viewers. This might be a good thing. The organization
has repeatedly sounded off its belief in the value of impartial reporting. Hypocritically,
it has been remarked, due to its too often uncritical almost sympathetic airing
of the views of Muslim extremists and terrorists. There’s something dirty about
BBC television news reporting these days. It’s full of sentiment that millions
of people just don’t want to hear and this, along with the fact that it
protests too much about its own impartiality and independence, have made it
increasingly seem like a bit of a joke. Its reporting is no longer impartial
and its stories are slanted towards editorial taste and flavor. It has become
unwieldy, out of touch and unresponsive to criticism. Many of these, especially
in the Conservative Party, maintain it has become the tool of a metropolitan
liberal elite. This may be so but would they prefer it to be the tool of an
Australian media magnate with the sensitivity of a lead tipped stick who
recently had to shut down one of his rags for illegal, immoral conduct? By putting
a check on BBC financial powers the new Culture Secretary will undoubtedly fire
a warning shot over its bows. Behave and get back into line with balanced
reporting because we’re watching you, and next time it could be the heavy hand
of Parliamentary regulation you have to
deal with!
ALL CHANGE AT THE TOP
The last week has seen the leaders of two of Britain’s main
political parties fall on their swords. Such a romantic way of putting it! Much
better to say that they were forced to resign by the electorate who told them
exactly where the Parties they led could go and in that sense telling them
where they could go likewise.
Nick Clegg’s five year lie-in with the Tories cost them nothing and the
Liberal Democrats everything. That’s what happens when you give up your
political cherry to a gang of dirty old men after promising the public you’d be
faithful and true. You got done for breach of promise. Came out of it all at
the end like a whore full of excuses and a reputation for honesty gone down the
toilet. Its leader stripped of all his political power, Mister Deputy Prime Minister this and Mister Deputy Prime Minister that
if you please with his face white and soggy was the first to beg for
forgiveness. And even then he was still unashamed! Had no regrets for anything
he’d done! It was all for us, for the people don’t you know! He did it all for
the country.
In which case EX DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER why did you and your Party
get such a kicking?
It wasn’t much different for the Milipede. The hammering Labour took
in Scotland was a contemptuous two fingers, mainly for the past betrayals of Blair
and Dark Gordon, two Scots Labour Prime Ministers who did nothing north of the
border over ten years and more except maintain the destruction of its once
industrial economy until there was not a lot left except tourism, tartan and
whisky. Little wonder that nationalism grew, returning contempt with contempt.
For years Scottish Labour turned a blind eye, thinking nothing would happen!
That the Scots who’d voted to remain part of the UK would stay faithful but not
anymore. In 2015 they turned their backs big time. Goodbye fifty plus seats and
cheerio any hope you had of being Prime Minister! But that wasn’t all. The
English weren’t happy either. The Labour Leader’s promises to get rid of nasty
employment practices such as zero hours contracts that removed the security of
a regular wage from millions of workers and substantially increase the wretched
Minimum Wage, along with a commitment to block energy price increases all sounded
fine but just weren’t enough.
Conservatives promises to repair an economy severely damaged by
Labour’s failure to control the banker’s
investment activities was something that hung over Miliband. An
inheritance he couldn’t make up, even with promises. To win the election he
needed to gain seats in England but lost them instead and like the Liberal
Democrats his Party went down the tubes. He had to go and went with a full set
of teeth shining as ever in darkly jowls. Once again, saying sorry wasn’t enough.
He left Labour in rags. Not because of his honorable intentions but because of
the toxic inheritance bequeathed by Blair, and Brown, with Mandelson, Straw and
Blunkett chucked into the mix.
In the last week the election result has been analyzed and debated
by media pundits and so called experts over and over. All wanting to get their
oar in, giving reasons for this, that or the other. My own take is simple. The
two main losers in the General Election were Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Both Parties and their leaders were keen supporters of Britain’s membership of
the EU. Both had little to say about the problems of out of control mass
immigration. The Liberal Democrats had hardly a word to say and indeed seemed
to support it. Labour on the other hand was undoubtedly the architect of
uncontrolled mass Muslim immigration and all the nasty problems of Islamic
extremism that went with it from 1997 when New Labour took office. These
problems and this inheritance was neither forgotten nor forgiven by an uptight
electorate that gave Nigel Farage and UKIP close to 4 million votes. Such a
success clearly didn’t come out of the blue. The British people were uptight
and turned their backs on what they didn’t like and didn’t want anymore. So goodbye Labour we must leave you…
ATTACK ON THE TRADES UNION MOVEMENT
The very first act of the new Conservative Government had been to
announce a curtailment of the right of Trades Union members in the Public
Sector to engage in strike activity. This refers specifically to those workers
engaged in essential services,
whatever that phrase might mean and to whoever it applies being determined by
the new Conservative Business Secretary Sajid Javid, son of an immigrant bus
driver but actually the brainchild of Tory manqué Boris Johnson. Tory
legislation will soon require that 40% percent of all union members balloted
for strike action must vote to support it. Come to think of it this might not
be such a bad idea as many on the Trades Union side might think as it will
force them to get their membership together and fully behind them for any
strike action. It may in fact have the effect of coalescing and hardening membership
support, something they will now need to organize rather than simply accept as
something taken for granted.
Strangely then, this seeming attack on Union activity may actually
have the effect of strengthening it and achieving greater membership
solidarity. Trades Union leaders should see it as a potential plus and not be
so quick to write it off as the attack it seems to be. Their view of course is
understandable considering recent Government policy. On immigration alone they
could justifiably argue that it wasn’t enough for Labour and Conservative
Governments to create a reserve army of cheap immigrant labor to depress
worker’s wages… the Trades Unions themselves had to be muzzled with new voting
restrictions, an idea mooted a couple of years back by ex-public schoolboy
Johnson himself whose carefully contrived bumbling exterior hides a vast jungle
of reactionary dystopian views in which the idiot like mumbling disguises an
altogether more primordial political baying, namely for the blood of radical
organized labor.
The notion of curtailing the rights of workers is stupid and its
consequences not seriously thought out, but then the politics of labor
management in Britain, unlike that in Germany, has only ever sought short term
political ends. Things that always seem good at the time. Sorry then, Tory son
of an immigrant bus driver and Bumbling Boris, you could well be encouraging
things you’re so keen to put the skids under!
AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION
In the week since the General Election there has been an
extraordinary assassination attempt on one of the main Party leaders. Let me
say immediately that it hasn’t been one that necessitated the involvement of
the police but even so the matter has been widely publicized and brought to the
attention of millions of people. Mercifully the attempt seems to have failed
and we must all be thankful that no-one has suffered serious injury in the
process. Are you still mystified? If so let me say that I am of course
referring to a singularly dirty deed. Nothing physical but dirty all the same.
I am of course referring to the attempted political assassination of Nigel
Farage, leader of a Party that gained nearly 4 million votes at the General
Election. More than the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalist Party put
together and third in the share of the popular vote. For that they had one
Member of Parliament elected while the other two gained sixty seats plus. Now
there’s democracy for you!
No matter. His splendid management of his Party throughout the
campaign and staggering public popularity wasn’t good enough for some of the
senior Party figures around him. The man resigned his Party leadership as he
promised he’d do if he failed to win the seat he contested of South Thanet but
a day later its Executive, under huge pressure from his loyal supporters refused
to accept it. In consequence he soon changed his mind saying that with
important European elections coming up this wasn’t the time to absent himself
from the role he was best at, leading the Party that he’d created.
Alas it wasn’t good enough for those with ambition around him. He was
immediately attacked by his Election Campaign Chief, Economics Spokesman
Patrick O’Flynn who described him to The Times newspaper as someone who was
“snarling, thin skinned and aggressive” and risked turning the Party into a
“personality cult.” If that wasn’t enough a senior supposedly UKIP source told
the BBC that Nigel Farage should face a leadership contest; the source being former
senior member Godfrey Bloom who time back was forced to resign from the Party
for making insulting and highly derogatory remarks against women. Bloom himself
was one of a considerable number of party peculiars
whose influence its leader had sought to diminish for obvious political reasons.
They were making it look like a party of cranks, diminishing its chances of
gaining widespread support so he and others like him had to go.
In the last week however it seems like they’ve all been trying to
make a desperate comeback. Attacking Farage’s reputation and calling for a
leadership contest. Godfrey Bloom may talk about the dangers of personality
cult, rightly pointing to the 1930’s, but just try to imagine someone like him
leading UKIP! No votes from women with
you running the show!
This attack by the disenchanted, happily taken up by the BBC on an
hourly basis had its effect. Two of Farage’s closest party political aides were
forced to resign. The charge being that they’d allowed him too much freedom in
promoting its election campaign. Now, egged on by Farage’s greatest media
enemy, BBC Television, the Party’s single Member of Parliament Douglas
Carswell, was drawn into what had been up till then a row about electoral
tactics and called on his leader to take a break from running the Party which
effectively meant resigning. Giving up the job to someone like him! Truth is,
if the Party had more than one Member to represent them in Parliament such a
suggestion could justifiably be construed as betrayal.
Farage however had something much more powerful up his sleeve to
deal with treachery like that. UKIP had just won a huge electoral
following that justified his policies so no need to feel his leadership
challenged. Politically ambitious people at the top could bay for blood
but as Party Leader he had the support of millions. The loyalty of the
electorate was to him and his Party not to those circulating around it or in
it. Clegg and Miliband could hop it as
leaders. They’d lost the support of the people. He hadn’t!
The BBC, main orchestrators of the get rid of the Nigel Farage
campaign for day after day were getting nowhere fast. With no more ammunition
or gossip to feed off their reporting staff began making the rounds, looking
for any sign of temper or temperament. Farage however, knowing the nature of
the beast and how shabbily it had treated him and his Party during the General
Election played it low key and calm. By the weekend all the mud they’d been
hoping would stick washed away into the gutters of a dead story with nowhere to
go. Having failed to blow him out of the water the BBC fell back on its current
news items of Royal chit chat and immigrant boat people.
CHUCKER UMUNNA
Encouraged one minute by good friend and mentor, slimy Peter
Mandelson, to throw his hat in the ring to be the new Labour Leader, next minute
he’s fishing it out and running for cover from breaking news stories about his tax
haven Channel Island investments that for some reason he forgot to tell anyone
about! Oh dear, you’ve been such a naughty boy Chucker, chucking it away
because you didn’t think it was important to tell anyone in the Labour Party
about all the dosh you had salted away! Could it be because it serious ran
against the grain of Labour Party propriety? I mean, didn’t you even tell your
dear friend Peter, former Labour Business Secretary and Blairie Boy in Chief
that you had all that dodgy money stashed away?
Oh dear, oh dear! Here one minute gone the next. Didn’t want all the
publicity that came with all that dosh in dodgy places or the weed you once
smoked when you were young and with it. Hope you won’t be altogether out on
your political arse because Streatham can be a dodgy place if you’re booted and
suited and not so slick anymore. Never mind, with your slick and easy ability
to talk maybe your Labour business friend Peter can find something for you, but
then I forgot. He’s kind of ex-Labour himself a bit like little Lord Levy, another
Blair crony with a quid in his pocket still pretending he’s someone or other when
he’s only publicity dog-meat!
But frankly there’s really no future in Labour if that’s what you’re
hoping for. The Party’s out of power for ten years or more so no hope of being Andy
Burnham’s Chancellor one day soon. Until that time you’ll have to wear out your
bum on the back benches or alternatively get a job at some university or other.
Perhaps a lectureship in Politics. It might be a good place to start!
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